Friday, May 28, 2010

Zero Defex had a song called Schwinehundt Doggen aka Swine Hunt Doggen, aka Sine Hunt Dogen. You can listen to a sample of it on the CD Baby page I've linked to. The song is 34 seconds long but the sample they give you is like 30 seconds, so you don't miss much. But you do miss Jimi Imij shouting "Achtung!" at the beginning, which is what I think of every time I see that word written on something here in Germany.

Today is my last talk here, in Berlin, by the wall, where I'm 5 foot 2 inches tall. And if anyone gets that reference...

I had the great honor to be introduced to Kaz Tanahashi by my friend Regina Obendorfer of Dogen Sangha Frankfurt. That's a photo of us on Regina's porch on the bottom of this page. The photo on the top is off a postcard I bought in Frankfurt that I thought was really funny.

I got no time to write today. But I've been trying to update this page every three days or so. So this is it.

I've been thinking of trying to write about a phenomenon I've noticed on this tour. It's that when I talk, people seem to come expecting me to sell them my religion. It's always exciting when someone does that. They make beautiful promises of what will happen if you accept their belief system. You can argue about it with them and watch them defend it. You can think about whether they might be right or not. I used to have lots of fun doing that kind of stuff.

But that's not what I do. I wouldn't say I don't care whether or not the people who come see me talk go out and start practicing zazen. It would be nice for them and for me if they did. But I don't want to waste my time, effort and energy trying to convince anyone to do it. It's none of my business, really.

Obviously I have yet to come up with a way to articulate what it is I want to say about this. Maybe one of these days I will.

Also, a lot of people I meet on the road want me to become their master. Like that dog in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons who follows Bugs around saying, "Will you be my master?" If anyone knows which cartoon that was, let me know.

Anyhow, I always tell them that if they lived near me they'd ultimately be terribly disappointed in me. Disappointment is a necessary part of this game.

They make beautiful promises of what will happen if you accept their belief system. You can argue about it with them and watch them defend it.

And Brad makes beautiful promises of what will happen if you sit in the right posture and accept his version of zen as the one, true authentic zen. You can argue with him about posture or dogmatic views and watch him defend them.

When someone expects me to sell zen to them, I say "Buddhism is the religion that promises nothing....and delivers!" I stole that from David Chadwick (cf: Crooked Cucumber), but it does actually say what I want to say.

“When we cultivate our understanding and become aware of what we are doing, and actually see what is happening within ourselves and around us […] we don’t have to wait until we can sit in full lotus, or until we have been sitting for ten or twenty years, as if only then something will happen. Some of us sit cross-legged, some half-lotus, some full lotus and some Burmese style or in a chair. These are only different views of the same moon. There are people who think that one form is better than the other, but it is not true. We are truly like the moon: any amount of light makes a full halo.” (Kwong-roshi, No Beginning, No End: The Ultimate Heart of Zen)

Charlie Dog would be that dog...Though he was more famous for- pardon the pun- hounding Porky Pig than Bugs.There were something like three shorts where he tried to convince Porky to be his master and one where he was trying to get in with a plantation owner or something down south...There might have been more, but theses are the ones I remember.

That's strange (as in coincidental), because the Trungpa quotes are quite irregular -maybe one every week or 10 days or...and the one this today included "From ego's standpoint enlightenment is the ultimate dissapointment."

I understand what you are saying about religions pushing their version as the only correct one and you should accept or be eternally wrong (my family is full of priests, ministers and Bible-thumpers). I also see what you are saying about when you are giving talks....it would be nice if people saw things the way that you do and try Zen, but your goal is not to "win over converts", but to show people that they can figure things (specifically Truth) for themselves without blindly following some religious leader.

I have questioned religions all of my life because of my families involvement in them and their unending devotion to trying to show that they were right and everyone else was going to hell in a hand basket and when I questioned them and their religion I was going down as well.

When I first started reading about Buddhism, I found it nice because it was not telling me what to believe or that I had to believe in anything really, it seemed to say that what I needed was to find myself by leading myself there (kinda a sappy version of what I mean but I am still new at Buddhism ans Zen).

"When I first started reading about Buddhism, I found it nice because it was not telling me what to believe or that I had to believe in anything really, it seemed to say that what I needed was to find myself by leading myself there (kinda a sappy version of what I mean but I am still new at Buddhism ans Zen)."

Lotta "I" in that crap you wrote. You and that fucking ego aren't welcome here.

Malcolm 108, how do you figger? "Icehouse" (a band some say) didn't form until 1977. Lou Reed's album Berlin, with the title song Berlin with the lyrics Brad is quoting came out in 1973.

One feature of the album is the exceptional bass playing by Jack Bruce, maybe you heard of him?

&FYI: Yesterday's grant proposal, actually a bid to the state to purchase services, would fund O&M (Orientation and Mobility) training, a masters level program at 19 US universities. It would allow for an individual to train to work with BLV (blind and low vision) populations.

No worries, mate. I was/am so tired and sick (flu/cold for a week now) that I def. entertained the idea you were kiddin' but thought christ, I gotta go to bat for old Lou here, so I bit. Lol.

Alot of people think that what I do for "work" is not "work" including me: if I accept any label (its a moving target) in this case it would be "writer" because I love to write just about anything (ahem).

That would've been something for the last Bradpost, how if you do something you love and get paid for it, then its impossible to distinguish your "job" from your "life." It's pre-agrarian: I'm a hunter-gatherer of information.

Without the ancient establishment of Buddhism as it exists in China, many of their Western counterparts make do with little: they may do no more than put a rock and a vase of flowers on a table and bow in prayer to the Buddha image in their mind. Practitioners or leaders of Zen groups who may not have a complete understanding of the relationship between Zen and Buddhism may tend to confuse and/or alienate people by presenting a single-sided or otherwise incomplete perspective.

They may also fail to recognize that Zen practice, unbalanced by Buddhist moral precepts, is stark and difficult to navigate. As a result of the frequent disconnect between Zen and Buddhism, the West has seen its share of notorious Zen Leaders which has led many western Zen groups to become wary of the Buddhist religious establishment altogether, preferring to isolate Zen from its Buddhist roots even further.

In fact, some groups have gone so far as to advertise themselves proudly as being "priest-free," as if they had eliminated a dangerous toxin from their midst.

Perhaps Buddhism in the west is cracked, but is this cause enough to discard it altogether?

D. T. Suzuki, likely the most prolific writer to date on Japanese Zen for western audiences, often said that Zen could be adopted by any religion: we could have a Christian Zen, a Jewish Zen, a Muslim Zen, etc. Zen did not, he said, have to be part of Buddhism, but could just as well be fully independent of it, to the extent, even, that you could attach it to anything you liked. Not surprisingly, we have not heard this view expressed in China where Chinese Chan, being tightly integrated into Buddhism, is offered to all (if only embraced by the few), and where the notion of Zen being independent of Buddhism has not had the need to be considered.

As westerners brought up in different religious traditions and cultures, we won't ever have the same Buddhism as the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, or the Vietnamese. Nor should we.

Our psyches are shaped by western cultures, not eastern ones. A religion will invariably speak uniquely to each culture that adopts it, but is there value in abandoning the core foundation of a spiritual tradition? Giving thanks to the ocean that supports the boat we ride in, acknowledging and honoring the great progenitors of Chan who have kept it alive for centuries through the institution of Buddhism, is a beautiful thing. The truth is, we wouldn't have Zen without Buddhism.

When we westerners finally come to accept the sensibility of integrating Buddhism, the religion, with Zen, its mystical path, rather than encouraging a rift between them, both become stronger, both become whole: the heart and the brain will re-connect and once again work harmoniously together.

There's little doubt that someday there will be a culturally unique "Buddhism of the West," but how this process will unfold there's no way to know. Buddhism required over five centuries to become a mature religion in Japan. In the West it's still in its first century.

Will Zen Buddhism become a mixture of Jewish, Christian, and Hindu mysticism along with Japanese, Chinese and Korean Zen? Religious iconography is filled with Self-symbolism and all mature religions have evolved representations of them, inspired by archetypal encounters we all have on the spiritual journey. How will these universal motifs of Self (and it's fragments) be represented in future Western Zen art? For the Messiah, or celestial savior figure, will we have a Chinese-looking Maitreya (Mithras), a Greek-looking Dionysus, an Indian-looking Krishna? How will we envision these universal religious motives that arise from the collective unconscious -- those fragments of Self that seek to be known?

Inevitably, our own collective spiritual lives will guide the evolution of Western Buddhism.

I always thought it'd be a kick if Frank Booth turned up later as a corporate trainer leading seminars on Interpersonal Relationships In The Workplace. But they killed him at the end of Blue Velvet--too bad.

To all who knocked me for my writing or questioned my sincerity....I am sincere, and do not feel that what I wrote was crap. If you feel the need to act like a grade school playground and try to bully people...go find a blog for that. I know that some people truly read and write here to share genuine ideas about Zen and Buddhism and then there are some that are here just to throw out whatever BS fits there mood. I almost stopped sharing here because of the ppl that want to trash everyone else and their ideas once, but was talked back to sanity by one particular writer that saw through every other writers crap. I feel bad for you, in that you obviously do not feel good enough about your own thoughts that you feel the need to crap on someone elses.

Yep, it's a shame that one or two (maybe three?) rude, angry types choose this blog to piss on. Were I presumptious enough to imagine I knew anyhting about him/her, or that I speak for everyone who comments here, I might say Egos like the one on that guy are definitely not welcome here. He's a creep.

"I am sincere, and do not feel that what I wrote was crap. If you feel the need to act like a grade school playground and try to bully people...go find a blog for that. I know that some people truly read and write here to share genuine ideas about Zen and Buddhism and then there are some that are here just to throw out whatever BS fits there mood. I almost stopped sharing here because of the ppl that want to trash everyone else and their ideas once, but was talked back to sanity by one particular writer that saw through every other writers crap. I feel bad for you, in that you obviously do not feel good enough about your own thoughts that you feel the need to crap on someone elses."

Buddhist compassion at work again. Don't get me wrong, if you were this person's zen teacher it might actually be compassionate to say something like the above directly and in-person to them. But to say something like this in a comment section is not being compassionate.

The same goes for Brad's name calling and nastiness. Brad likes to justify such behavior by invoking the old zen masters that called their students devils, shitsticks, cut off their fingers or slammed their feet in doors.

What he leaves out is that all of these instances were between teacher and student, master and seeker. Calling people names and being rude on a blog or chat room is just being cruel and rude, not teaching zen. It'd be like me cutting my neigbor's finger off when he asked me about zen. "Oh, but an old zen master did that." I wouldn't be teaching zen, I'd just be a cruel, selfish deluded person.

To all who knocked me for my writing or questioned my sincerity....I am sincere, and do not feel that what I wrote was crap.The most of us have no doubt about your sincerity, but you defend yourself and IMO that is a sign, that you don't trust yourself. What you wrote isn't crap, but if you compare your writing with the writing of Jinzang or John, that messuring is crap. Get it?

If you feel the need to act like a grade school playground and try to bully people...go find a blog for that.

This is a free blog.Everyone can post what ever he/she/it want.Sometimes it's usefull, sometimes not. You choose. But again: if you want a paradise, sorry buddy, there's no paradise out there. Paradise only exist in you.

I know that some people truly read and write here to share genuine ideas about Zen and Buddhism and then there are some that are here just to throw out whatever BS fits there mood.

Yes, you're lucky. Some people in this blog are interested in sharing their ideas and thoughts, some are not. Again: you choose.Why choosing the bad ones?

I almost stopped sharing here because of the ppl that want to trash everyone else and their ideas once, but was talked back to sanity by one particular writer that saw through every other writers crap.

Good, that you came back, but you sound like a little kid ( sorry for the analogy), that discover that the world isn't a holy place.

I feel bad for you, in that you obviously do not feel good enough about your own thoughts that you feel the need to crap on someone elses.

And you? What about you? Bugged up by being criticised from others?There's you in these "others".If you love that, there's no others or crap anymore.

All these PPL are your true dharma-brothers and -sisters and we like to sit round that warm, crackling dharma-fire here. Join in!

All these PPL are your true dharma-brothers and -sisters and we like to sit round that warm, crackling dharma-fire here.Join in!

Join in?

Well..ok...

What a fuckin dickhead!!! You are NOT my "Dharma-bro" you confused braindead piece of shit. I've never met you, and from the sound of the garbage you write I wouldn't fuckin wanna. Jesus H fucking Christ!!! None o you understand the first goddam fucking thing about Zen. Gimme a gun.

You wrote: The same goes for Brad's name calling and nastiness. Brad likes to justify such behavior by invoking the old zen masters that called their students devils, shitsticks, cut off their fingers or slammed their feet in doors. What he leaves out is that all of these instances were between teacher and student, master and seeker.

Some instances, yes. But by no means all. There are many examples in Buddhist writing, of all hues and throughout all periods, of teachers/masters laying into those with whom they disagree, but may have never met, with insulting, sometimes abusive language.

Hokai @1:58am-> I see your points on each section of your writing. I do understand that this is a free place for commenting and anyone can say whatever fits their mood and we have to sort out the solid from the whatever.

Your analogy (which did offend at first) makes since from the viewpoint of this blog. I will not talk about having a hard time putting thoughts into writing or anything like that. I am actually not a kid (although it would be nice to have that level of energy again) but am an adult that has only recently realized that I am allowed to express my own thoughts (thanks to my parents for grinding into me a concept of shut up your always wrong). Even though that sounds lame as well.

I can see your point about defending my self and my writing as well. I will agree that I have had a lot of self-confidence issues in life and have become a "late-bloomer" in finding out that that mess is actually only in my own mind and I need to get past it, if that makes any sense.

While, in a way, your words were harsh; they were constructive and helped me to see a little more about myself and what I am learning about Zen at this very moment (which is what is all about right: this moment, this reality) instead of just being harsh with no real point (thanks for being blunt but constructive).

What's written and has your metaphorical panties in a wad can also be taken a different way. You don't have to whine about it and justify yourself. Right?

I also don't have to sit here and act like I know anything. I know virtually nothing, in fact. On the other hand, this other part of me can get awfully defensive when it feels it's being challenged or attacked.

We're all just here putting on our public cyberfaces anyway. If you're getting clogged up in defending yourself by coming here, rest assured that you're doing it elsewhere as well.

What a fuckin dickhead!!! You are NOT my "Dharma-bro" you confused braindead piece of shit. I've never met you, and from the sound of the garbage you write I wouldn't fuckin wanna. Jesus H fucking Christ!!! None o you understand the first goddam fucking thing about Zen. Gimme a gun.

to DKL: this blog has become a pretty little Internet-Sangha (an angry young "true" buddhist is now cock his weapon:-))and like in a real sangha you'll be smoothed. Sometimes harsh and blunt, sometimes with a gun, but always with compassion.

To Harry: Choose something works best if you don't choose? I'm not sure if I get you right.Cheers, Gerald

... and to the sharp shooter@4:56 AM: am I get you right that the first goddam fucking thing you realized about Zen is to get a gun and doing a little shootout or so?

I see Jundo Cohen, Genpo Roshi (Yes,the "I'll fight you any day of the week, Warner. Any day, any time.Name the place and let's do it.-Genpo") and some others walking down the street. Maybe you'll join that gang.A barking dog never bites...Sincere,Gerald

Freedom is a fact before we choose to do it, but we often don't realise/actualise this fact.

So, in terms of our own conduct-experience, it's not an actualised/realised fact until we choose to do it.

But the choice itself is not the already-existing fact of freedom... we have to actually do it (otherwise we could just choose to do zazen and then not do it!)

Reality is already real and free, but we generally don't conduct ourselves in accordance with how things really exist. We can't say then that we have directly verified this, or realised/actualised it, for ourselves untill we've done it (well, a lot of people do actually...an unhelpful assumption in many cases possibly). I can make the choice to do this, I can make the mental decision, but that mental decision, or any such thought or decision, is not to realise the fact of the free nature of how things exist directly.

Freedom then (freedom that is not confined to mental choice, will, decisions etc) is not simply a matter of thinking, choice, or making decisions but is more fundamental as we can experience in sitting upright and letting choice, decision making and all such 'freedom' come forward and drop away.

I mention it because, in our idealistic Western cultures, freedom is invariably associated with thought and thinking and the range of choice available to oneself; but Buddhist freedom is different and is not confined to, or by, thought.

What a fuckin dickhead!!! You are NOT my "Dharma-bro" you confused braindead piece of shit. I've never met you, and from the sound of the garbage you write I wouldn't fuckin wanna. Jesus H fucking Christ!!! None o you understand the first goddam fucking thing about Zen. Gimme a gun.

Hokai wrote: this blog has become a pretty little Internet-Sangha (an angry young "true" buddhist is now cock his weapon:-))and like in a real sangha you'll be smoothed. Sometimes harsh and blunt, sometimes with a gun...

I dunno about the internet sangha thing. To me, this is an unmoderated blog comment section. But the etymology of the Sanskrit word sangha is interesting in light of what you wrote, Hokai:

So Sangha comes to mean "any collection or assemblage, heap, multitude, quantity, crowd..." and thence "a society, association, company, community...the whole community or collective body or brotherhood of monks" from the sense of things/people being 'struck together'.[All definitions from the Monier-Williams sanskrit Dictionary]

So smoothed, like rocks in a bag? I've no idea if that image had anything to do with the origin of the word, but it is interesting that that more usual meaning of han ( = gha) is all about physical contact...and violence.

What you guys are really saying is 'I am not like the rest of you poor slobs, I have true understanding.

Nice trolling. But, no, that's not what I meant to say.

Everyone has opinions: this is good and that is bad. But if we notice that other people have totally different opinions, we'll see that things are good or bad. Otherwise everyone would see them so, just as everyone sees that the sky is blue and the grass is green.

The fact that some people like Brad (substitute another Zen teacher's name here, if you like) but others don't means that these are opinions, something that arises from past causes, and not some quality in Brad himself.

Jinzang, Thank Trungpa I am ultimately disappointed...that you would think "God" (whoever she is) would have Anything to do with the likes of me!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> . <<<<<<<<<<<<<<

I would say that most are drawn to this blog because they have either heard of Brad the Zen dude or Brad the nerdy wanna be bad known as a mid-period "punk" or the combo: Brad the Zen guy punk rocker writer of sensationalist autobiographical catch-phrase titles.

Most think he possesses "something" they do not, something they want for themselves, projecting all kinds of things on him.

Or, like myself, some may come out of curiosity. Like hearing about a train wreck and driving across town to have a look and staying awhile.

"Some instances, yes. But by no means all. There are many examples in Buddhist writing, of all hues and throughout all periods, of teachers/masters laying into those with whom they disagree, but may have never met, with insulting, sometimes abusive language."

Really? Please give specific examples of a zen master calling another zen master or even another zen adherent some nasty name where there was no student - teacher relationship. My guess is that the only example you could give might be Dogen. And that figures. I'm not talking about teachers who denounced other teachers generally...as in 'teaching grandmother chan' and the like...but teachers that specifically named other specific individual teachers. Name some. I'll be waiting.

I'm not talking about teachers who denounced other teachers generally...

I was.

...but teachers that specifically named other specific individual teachers. Name some. I'll be waiting.

Do your own research, mate. You might even find a teacher other than Dogen throughout the very extensive history of Buddhism who denounced another teacher in unpleasant terms. And if you did find an example or two, would that make Brad ok with you? Or would you still think him wrong to do it? Are your views solely reliant on a rule-book derived from historical precedent and scripture, or do you have your own views? If you don't like what Brad does, that's fine with me. I'm just not sure what "no one else apart from Dogen, to my knowledge, has done it" has to do with it.

FWIW, it sticks in my craw a tad when Brad trashes Genpo with expletives (who else? I can't think of any other teacher he's done that to). Apparently, Brad has very specific, strongly felt objections to what Dennis does. But as Brad Warner is not my teacher, guru, mentor or exemplar, how he behaves only matters to me to the extent that it reflects on Dogen Sangha, one of whose teachers has been influential in turning my life around for the better, so that I feel some loyalty to DS - for better or worse, I 'identify' with Dogen Sangha.

In fact, AD, having done a little research and re-read your original post, it seems you were making pretty much the same point as I just have, and with which, of course, I agree:

Calling people names and being rude on a blog or chat room is just being cruel and rude, not teaching zen. It'd be like me cutting my neigbor's finger off when he asked me about zen. "Oh, but an old zen master did that." I wouldn't be teaching zen, I'd just be a cruel, selfish deluded person.

Your recent response to my comment shifted the ground, I think. In picking up on something I wrote you re-instated the "Oh, but an old zen master did [or didn't do] that" argument - which I thought you were criticizing.

So your issue with Brad is that, according to you, he justifies being rude to another teacher by referring to Dogen doing the same? Quite possibly, but I'd like some examples. Gimme some. I'm waiting.

Nah...tell you what, let's just agree that Brad can be an asswipe dickhead sometimes ;)